Early, early this morning, because it was a full moon and I am not a night person in ANY way, I did a little candle ritual to get rid of this negative energy that’s been clinging to me like a second skin lately. I also saged myself and my house, and left all my crystals outside to charge in whatever glimpse they might have gotten of the moon through the thick fog that blankets the coast in the summer months. Yeah, I do all of that stuff. I’ve been listening to podcasts about magic and manifestation (they aren’t all that different, to be honest), I’ve been reading books about mindfulness and journaling. I also started taking magnesium, because I’ve heard it is effective at easing depression. I’ve seen my therapist, I’ve gone to meetings, I’ve reached out to friends. In short, I have used almost every weapon in my arsenal to yank myself out of this funk I have been in. There are two things that I haven’t done- well, one, as of yesterday- and they are these: Take TRUE action and take medication. I don’t happen to have any medication laying around to take, obviously, but I am not averse to doing such a thing- going to my doctor and saying “Hey, nothing I am doing is working. I need some help.”, but I will tell you this, it is the very last thing I ever want to do. I’ve been lucky so far and it hasn’t come to that, but rest assured, if it did, I would do what I needed to do. I would never shame someone for needing that kind of help. Depression is an endless-seeming nightmare, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Everyone I’ve spoken to about the way I’m feeling inevitably asks the same question- “Why are you depressed? What’s wrong?” And it is almost funny, but not really, because…seriously? That isn’t how depression works. And I don’t know. There’s nothing wrong, nothing has changed, I just feel awful and I can’t shake it. Trust me, I’m TRYING.

Taking TRUE action though, the other thing I hadn’t done until yesterday, I know isn’t an option for everyone who is clinically depressed. I don’t think that’s what I am, although I certainly have potential (the one instance where not living up to my potential is a good thing!). I am more like…lightly depressed. A salad with a side of depression. Still showering, still getting dressed when necessary, just really upset about having to do those things. So, for ME, I know that if I can just get myself moving, I will probably feel better. Only I don’t want to do that. I want to sit here, in my robe, with my hair in a fraying braid, eating ice cream out of the container and watching “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” with the blinds closed.

My daughter called me the day before yesterday, and I huffily paused my show to take her call. She asked how I was, and I told her the truth. This kid, she has struggled with depression off and on for years, and she had some advice for me. I told her “I just keep thinking ‘tomorrow will be better, tomorrow will be better’ but it’s the same thing!” and she goes “mom, you can’t do that- you have to just get up and make yourself do something- I even wrote it on my dry erase board-‘JUST DO IT’, and I look at it all the time. It really helps!”

Of course, I rolled my eyes (she couldn’t see me) and said “I know you’re right, I will.” with absolutely no intention of doing any such thing. Later that night I messaged a friend of mine- “I really need to get my shit together. I can’t go on like this.” I went to bed, and in the morning, I read his response: “Just do it, then.”

Hmm.

As woo-woo as I am, you won’t find it hard to imagine that I strongly believe in synchronicity, and messages from the Universe coming through in any way that they can. Just Do It. From two people who care about me, two people who couldn’t be more unlikely to have conspired behind my back to get this through to me.

Fine, then.

Yesterday, after work, instead of slipping into my couch-coma as I am wont to do, I grudgingly put my shoes on and ordered my small child and my dog into the car. I drove to the beach, and I grudgingly got out of the car, ordered my whining child and super excited dog out of the car, and trudged morosely up the hill and over the dunes. It was freezing cold and super windy, and for some reason, by the time we made it down to the water, both of us humans were smiling. The dog was smiling the entire time, of course. We didn’t go far or stay long, but that wasn’t the point. The point was just to do it. By the time we got back to the car, my ears hurt like hell from the cold wind, but I felt…alive. As if I were actually existing inside my body and life, rather than from somewhere outside of it.

We went to Petsmart, bought some dog shampoo and a big bone for Lucy, and when we got home I gave her a bath. She hasn’t had a bath in several months- the only one who hates her bath more than I do is her- but I was bound and determined to do it, and I did. She was such a good girl- she got right into her little tub and lay down, and I used a pitcher to rinse the filth off of her. When she was done, I dried her with a towel, and she pranced around, feeling pretty, the way dogs do after a bath. Five seconds before she went and rolled in the dirt out back. Goddammit.

The point here is, I did some things. And after I’d done them, I felt better. I took myself out to dinner, alone, and had a smashing time. I was in bed by nine, and that’s okay, too. So now, my job is not to lose my momentum. I’m not out of the woods yet. As soon as I hit publish on this bad boy, I’m throwing on some yoga pants and heading out for a little while- back to the beach, and then to a meeting.

Do I believe in my candle rituals and manifestation boards and crystal energy? Do I believe that my prayers are heard and that meditation helps, and that talking about what is wrong matters? YES. I believe all of that. But I also believe that we need to meet the Universe, meet God, meet whoever or whatever is out there halfway. Whether that means asking our doctor for help with our brain chemistry, or getting up and out of the house, putting away the ice cream and opening the blinds- that’s a personal decision. We can’t just wait for miracles to fall out of the sky.

There is something strange and beautiful going on with me…I don’t know what in the world it is, but I am not even going to try to fight it. As a matter of fact, all I want to do is dive into it, explore it, see what this thing is that is calling to me. I’m going to try to explain it to you, and then you will probably think I am losing my mind, but I don’t know…to me, it feels much more like I am finding my place than losing anything.

I think it might have started a few weeks ago, when I caught sight of my (much maligned) nude body in the mirror. For maybe the first time in forever, I thought “Oh, wow, I’m actually pretty sexy!” Which is so strange, considering that I mostly tell myself what a mess I am. But, I caught myself off guard, and those were the words that popped into my head. You know, we are so conditioned, as women, to seek this crazy ideal of perfection in our bodies, and…I mean…I’m 43. I’ve given birth to two daughters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen evidence of an abdominal muscle in my body, EVER, not even at my thinnest. But I am also allowed to be sexy. Even if it feels almost embarrassing to commit those words to “paper” right now. This is what I thought, and how I felt, and I stand by it.

Then, I began this whole campaign to see my life with new eyes, to find the beauty and the joy and the magic in all of it. To really start my day with great intention, to meditate and be centered, to have my eyes open, to bring happiness to others whenever possible. In other words, and this just hit me right this very second, but to stop living as if there was something wrong that I needed to fix, and to start living in all that was already right. I honestly did not realize that was the shift that was happening until I was writing this. Which makes sense why this next thing happened:

So, as I meditated the other morning, I began to focus on my breathing. As I did so, it was as if I were separate from my body, observing my body breathing. Suddenly, I was filled with this crazy, tender, loving admiration for this body of mine. That it did everything I needed it to do to keep me alive, without me even having to think about it, every single day for 43 years now! My God! What a miracle. I had a memory then, of myself as a little girl of maybe six, sitting in the bathtub with my knobby little knees and pale skin, and I realized…that was the same body that I have right now. It has been with me through everything, and it still did everything for me. I’m not kidding, I know how silly this sounds, but even writing about it right now, I am getting tears in my eyes. For the first time in my life, maybe, I just feel this deep love for my body. If you are a woman, especially, you will understand what a mind blowing experience this must have been. I have never felt this way so deeply before. I’m so grateful! Because somewhere along the way, I got the idea that it was okay and normal to dislike my body…and that is so backwards and wrong. Our bodies literally keep us alive. I just can’t hate a part of myself like that, not anymore.

And then…and this is where it gets really weird…I started feeling this urge to build an altar. Like, I didn’t know what for, exactly, only that I wanted to honor this spiritual shift that was happening in me, and I didn’t know quite how to do it. So I ordered some books, and I thought it out…started looking into Paganism and Wicca and straight up Witchcraft (which isn’t what you think, unless you really know) and I just got more and more excited. Turns out, I already had an altar…my little shelves of Tarot card, bits of bone, rocks I love, feathers, sage, little statues that called to me…hello! Guess what that is? Yep, totally an altar. So today, I will be moving it into a more prominent spot in my living room, so that I can meditate there and really explore what it is that is happening with me.

Yesterday, my meditation was full of the most lush, incredible things- pictures that flashed behind my eyes and faded, one into another: Falling flowers, tangled, green vines, starry skies and still ponds, lotus flowers, and a woman with the beautiful wings of a moth. I don’t know what any of it means, but the energy around and within me is incredible, especially in the early morning hours. I can almost hear it humming through me.

It feels like I have broken through something. Like I am finally where I am supposed to be. I don’t know what it is, but I know I am safe here, and headed in the right direction. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

***Note: if anyone has any experience with something like what I am describing, please let me know, I am eager to learn more!***

I don’t often go into all my weird New-Age-y, kind of off beat, belief system, and I don’t know that I will go too far into it right now. Let’s just say I believe in lots of things that do not show up in the bible, and leave it at that. However, I am going to talk about dreams here. That is one thing that we can all agree we have in common, right? We all dream about stuff. Even people who claim they don’t usually dream (of course they do, they just don’t remember them) do occasionally have dreams they remember.

Lots of times, I have dreams that are, by anyone’s definition, a little…weird. Like, I generally have at least one or two very spiritual dreams about people who are close to me and die, right after they die. After my grandfather, whom I cherished, died, I dreamed that rather than him, my grandma had died first, and he was sitting at his kitchen table, lost, broken, and alone. I knew this was a message for me, from- him? God, maybe? My subconscious? It was a message from somewhere that things had to be the way they were. That, even though my papa had seemed like the strong one in life, living without my grandmother would have broken him. That things always happen as they are supposed to. That would have been odd enough, in and of itself. But years and years later, I was talking to my mom, and found out that she had had nearly the same exact dream after his death. Now, either one of us is lying (MOM), or there is something bigger at work here. I’ll let you decide which explanation works best for you, but I know what I believe. We are not alone. There is more, WAY more, happening that we can’t see, and this is a comfort to me that I can get nowhere else. My “weird” dreams inspire my faith in a way that going to church just never could.

I dreamed about my paternal grandmother two nights in a row, in the days directly after her death. We had not been speaking when she died. In the first dream, she was very confused, and wasn’t sure where she was, or how she’d gotten there. She was with a friend of hers that used to live across the street from her in Fresno, Sally, and I honestly don’t know if she is actually alive still or not. In my dream, she was not. She was the guardian for my grandmother, helping her adjust a little before she went to heaven. It was another weird dream, where I could see the walls of Heaven from a back window of these “holding areas” that looked a lot like San Francisco row houses. Also, the houses grew from the roots of a giant tree, and the actual tree WAS Heaven, so…whatever that means. The next night, I dreamed I was at a train station with my grandmother, and she was getting ready to leave. But before she did, she wanted to tell me a thing or two. One of the things was that she understood why I had been so angry with her, and that she was sorry. Another was, that we were just alike. “Don’t be like me,” She told me, hugging me tightly. “You are surrounded by SO MUCH love. Don’t WASTE it.” That dream will stay with me forever.

Last night, I had another weird ass dream. I dreamed I was hanging out with my cousin Carie, and, though I don’t remember the details exactly, somehow or another, she died. It fell on me to have to tell her husband. There was much more to the dream than that, but I woke up with the meaning of the dream echoing in my head- you have all these people who just want to be part of your life, who just want to love you. Do not take that for granted. One of these days you might wish like hell you had been different.

Do you ever have dreams with a loud and clear moral? I mean, I can’t be alone in this, right? I am never alone in any of the other strange shit that goes on in my life. Oh, and by the way- these are just a very, very small sample of the meaningful but strange dreams I have had. I dreamed of my friend Sara the day after she died, and she told me she loved me, as we walked arm in arm through a beautiful forest. We walked to the edge of a lake, where her wife, Krissy, was swimming sadly way out in the middle and she said “Isn’t she beautiful?”, and everything about that dream reminded me of Sara at her best- calm, serene, and she was so peaceful. I dreamed of my friend Jake, only months after he died, and he told me he was so happy where he was, and that this was exactly how everything had to be, and he was okay with it. He radiated joy. Everything I ever loved about him shone out of him, and none of the things I had disliked were there.

So, what do you think about all that? And, as a side note, I just got off the phone with the very cousin I dreamed about last night, and guess what? She just got out of the hospital, having had a septic blood infection from her sinuses. Coincidence? I think not!

So, the seasons are changing, the nights are getting colder, perhaps fires are being lit in your living room (or if you are super lucky, your bedroom) hearths. Your front step may show evidence of the fast approaching Halloween, little pumpkins waiting to be carved into smiles and grimaces. I even have a scarecrow this year! What better time, then, to bring up a subject that almost everyone loves to chime in on- GHOSTS! If you don’t have a story of your own, you definitely have heard plenty over the years, right?

My question to you is, do you believe in ghosts? Like, REALLY believe in them? My sincere hope is that everyone reading this will share their stories in the comments below, or on my Facebook page, because, on top of the fact that I LOVE to tell my own personal ghost story, I SO love hearing other people’s personal encounters with the paranormal. Now, I am going to tell you mine, and it is 100% true! If you don’t believe me, you can totally ask my mother, as she was there and lived through it, too. Some of her memories will be different than mine- this all started when I was eight years old- but I can promise you that it was an experience neither of us will ever forget.
So, when I was 8, my mother was pregnant with my brother, and we moved into a bigger house, a pretty nondescript, standard, home at 530 W. Dayton, in Fresno. It was a hideous mustard color, at least when we got there, but it had a huge backyard. Anyway, within our first few days there, the first thing happened, and it is the one that I am the most confident of all of. I was laying on my twin bed in my little room, and my mom and grandma had just walked out a few moments before. I was reading (of course), when suddenly, the top drawer of my dresser, right next to the bed, just slid open, all the way. Quickly, as if someone had yanked it, hard. I remember being SO terrified that I couldn’t scream- I opened my mouth to yell for my mom, and nothing came out. By the time I could make a sound, I felt quite wild and deranged. The women came running back in, and I told them what had happened, but I could tell they didn’t believe me.
Pretty soon, though, my mom and my step dad, and eventually, even my little brother, were quite aware that we were not living in that house alone. There was tons of regular poltergeist activity, ranging from footsteps in the hall, to glasses and dishes rattling in the cupboard, to entire boxes of cereal flying across the room. No Shit. The rocking chair would rock with no one in it, and no breeze to explain it, things would disappear and then show up in impossible places.
If that had been all of it, I think it would have been bearable. But it seemed to escalate, and the atmosphere in that house became truly unbearable. I don’t know how to explain it to you- if you have ever lived in a house with an unhappy spirit, you will know exactly what I mean…I was eleven, and I couldn’t be alone in that house. I would walk home from school, unlock the front door, and try to sit on the couch to watch TV. Most of the time, the feeling in that place was so oppressive, so terrifying, that I would wind up sitting on the front step until my parents got home. I couldn’t even be in there. You were never alone, and whatever lived there, unseen, did not want me there.
My mother was up late one night, and she heard my brother walking ( he was a toddler, then) down the hall towards her room. She was reading, and she didn’t look up until the footsteps stopped at the foot of her bed, and a strange voice said “Mama!”. Then, her head snapped up, and no one was there. My brother was asleep in his bed. Eventually, he refused to go into his room at night, screaming in terror, and pointing into the corners, hysterical. I will let my mom finish that story, though, because I don’t really remember it well.
We later learned, from our amazing neighbors, Jack and Hazel, who had lived there since the beginning of time, that a small child had died of Leukemia or something in our very house. So that explains the little footsteps we heard often, and the voice in my mom’s room. But I have always felt like there was something much older and more negative in that place than any lost little child’s soul could ever be. I will probably never know the whole story, since we moved many years ago…but I have always wondered if the people who lived there after us had any similar experiences.
I have had other things happen in my life, but that one was definitely the longest…and for sure, the scariest. So, How about you? Do you believe in Ghosts? And if so, why? Tell me your story! I am so excited, I can’t wait!
Happy Almost Halloween!

This will be short and to the point, as I am barely able to gather up the energy needed to write this right now. Also, this will be a little weird, probably.

Ever hear of an “empath”? Of course you have, you don’t live under a rock. Some people might think it’s all hocus-pocus weird new agey shit, but I think it’s just a normal trait. An animal instinct, if you will, that we all possess to a certain degree. I am PLAGUED with this particular thing, and you want to know what? I didn’t even know it was a thing- like I didn’t know there was a name for it, let alone that it was considered a psychic ability, until the past several years. I thought it was just normal to be able to tell how other people felt all the time. Apparently, this is not the case. Still, I would like to argue the fact that women, particularly, are rather good at picking up on peoples feelings in general, and when we know someone, it goes without saying that we notice when something is off. However, and you can say what you want about it, I have a bit of a hypersensitivity in this way. I’m not kidding.

You know how I know this for a fact now? Because I hung out in an airport, full of stressed out, upset, drunk, frustrated, sad, anxious people yesterday…and today, I feel like I have a hangover. I was bitch slapped in the sixth sense. I am good for nothing today. I decided that I really need to learn more about this, because I don’t ever want to feel the way I do right no, ever again. Just totally drained.